This interdisciplinary conference will address the significance of the work of Richard Hakluyt, the prolific collector and editor of first-hand discovery and adventure narratives, and author of The Principall Navigations (1589), expanded as The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, 3 volumes (1598-1600).

This conference will gather together an interdisciplinary group of Hakluyt scholars and experts on Renaissance travel writing from around the world to discuss Hakluyt’s work and legacy in context. It will also establish a consortium interested in preparing a new scholarly edition of Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations for the twenty-first century.

Topics for discussion include Hakluyt’s life and biography; his texts and their influence on Western and Eastern exploration, colonialism and empiricism; his legacy in terms of his immediate successors but also his impact on the ways in which later English explorations and colonial activities were conducted, and the enduring commemoration of his work in The Hakluyt Society, named in his honour and founded in 1846.

If you would like to offer a paper (of 25 minutes' duration) at the conference, please send a title and 250-word abstract before 30 September 2007 to:

Dr Daniel Carey Department of English, National University of Ireland, Galway daniel.carey@nuigalway.ieOrProfessor Claire Jowitt School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University claire.jowitt@ntu.ac.uk